CHICAGO | The son of a Chicago police officer beaten to death in 1988 said one of the men convicted for the slaying had recently been coaching in the Hegewisch Babe Ruth League.Joe Mathews wants to replace the league's board and change its by-laws so anyone with a criminal record can’t have a post. Currently, by-laws only prohibit people with sex offense convictions, or crimes against children, according to the league's president.League officials removed the coach, Dean Chavez, from the position he held for six years.Mathews is upset Chavez ever was chosen, and was attending Wednesday's meeting of the league’s governing board. Mathews said at the very least he wants the public to be aware the league picked Chavez, who has a second-degree murder conviction, to be a coach.“I want to get the word out to the community so they know what he did,” Mathews said. “The integrity of the program is at stake. I want to let the parents know what is going on with their children.”Mathews said he takes a special interest in this issue because his father, John, also served as a coach for the baseball program prior to his death on May 21, 1988.Scott Jamrock, who has been the Babe Ruth League’s president for the past month, was upset because he said the league dismissed Chavez on June 23, just a few days after being made aware of the situation.“That doesn’t seem to be good enough for (Joe Mathews,)" Jamrock said. “Now they want to take down the entire board, even though if we’re gone, there won’t be anyone to oversee the league.”Jamrock said Chavez was chosen to be coach prior to Jamrock's involvement with the league. He also said Chavez was a popular coach among the league’s ballplayers who are ages 13-15. There is a separate team of players up to 18.“He didn’t scream at people. He wasn’t pushing them around,” Jamrock said of Chavez. “A lot of kids used to request to be on the teams he coached.”Chavez was not available for comment.Jamrock said he’s willing to talk with Mathews.“We want to talk to them like adults, not like the circus (atmosphere) he’s trying to create.”Mathews said the situation is causing a lot of old memories to resurface, particularly for his mother, Laura.“We want people to know what happened,” he said. “It would be wrong to brush aside what (Chavez) did.”John W. Mathews was 27 and had been a police officer assigned to the South Chicago district for about 18 months when he was at his Hegewisch home and heard a call for officers to the forest preserve near Wolf Lake.Because he lived within walking distance, he went to the area and assisted police officers who were clearing the area of a rowdy group of people.In the early hours of May 21, he encountered five men who were among the group, and they became upset he had helped police.The Chicago Police Memorial Foundation said when Mathews identified himself as a police officer, one of the men hit him with a baseball bat. Another hit him in the face with a brick while trying to take his police star and identification, and several men joined in the beating.Five men ultimately faced criminal charges for the incident, including Chavez and his brother Anthony, both of whom received 27-year prison terms in 1989.Dean Chavez served 11 years in prison and was released in 2000.

This is really shameful - shameful not because the coach was removed, but because the worthless asshole served only 11 years and didn't die in prison, as he deserved to.